Is what Holmes wrote (in dissent) in Abrams v. U.S. really at all disputable these days? He was, after all, dissenting from the CRIMINAL PROSECUTION of anti-war protesters.

I presume, therefore, that this quote must pertain to support for the Cordoba Community Center against any efforts to employ governmental efforts to stop it. It wouldn't have any bearing on, say, calls for people to refrain from rhetoric suggesting that violence is always an option against policies they do not agree with. Criticism of such rhetoric without any threat of governmental force is entirely consistent with the "marketplace of ideas" Holmes was advocating with the words you've quoted, Professor.

Free speech now includes the right to overturn bans on the expression of facts that expose a false set of facts backing up a government scam. Think WikiLeaks. Internet censors are pleading their case in the White House as we speak.

Democrats encourage blacks to vote as a block for their self-interest. Same with SWPL women and gays.

The emerging reality that lower and middle class voters can and will vote as a block for their self-interest is an idea that Democrats label "hate speech." Candidates who represent lower and middle class voters, like Palin, must be destroyed.

Those lower middle class white guys with pickup trucks like to work at construction jobs and pouring concrete. They are in direct competition with illegal immigrants. So, those lower middle class white guys must be "racists," right?

This sounds like a reference to President Lincoln's decision to (quite illegally) suspend habeas corpus in Maryland and Virginia (states surrounding Washington, DC and then in a state of armed insurrection), which is not quite the same as advocating the suppression of AGW sceptics.

Most of you still don't know this, but remember the Health Care Bill? The one no congress-critter could be bothered to read before voting for it? I slipped in a provision declaring me Dictator for Life.

Now, a few thoughts:

"... unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country."

I decree the above thought to imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law.

Actually some DINO politicians--like Waxman-- have argued for censorship of blogs. Yet most intelligent democrats oppose the J-Edgar policies, whether initiated by Dems or conservatives. And anyone who considers the chi chi, westside celebrity-led Huff-Po the voice of the Democratic party probably shouldn't be blogging.

What you won’t hear, except from me, is that 'Let the good times roll' is an especially risky message for African-Americans. The plain fact is that they tend to possess poorer native judgment than members of better-educated groups. Thus they need stricter moral guidance from society.—Sailer, Steve, "Let the Good Times Roll", VDare.com

"Al Sharpton said that he’d met with the FCC about getting Rush Limbaugh banned from the radio. 'This is not a first amendment issue,' Sharpton said. 'He can talk at home all he wants.'"

But Al Sharpton might not be a real Democrat, having run for the presidency only two times. At various times many Democrats (Richard Durbin, Charles Schumer two cite a couple) have expressed the need to reinstate the 'Fairness Doctrine' which is nothing but a call for censorship. When government gets to determine 'fairness' and citizens need to seek permission to speak, there is not free speech, there is only regulated speech. And that's what most people on the left want.

At present, any martial metaphors and arguments for repealing the medical insurance omnibus bill.

With regard to President Lincoln's action, the Supremes did not want other presidents to consider it a useful precedent, so they declared it to have been unjustified and illegal, but prudently waited until the Civil War was over to declare it so.

It's all very well for Oliver Wendell Holmes to say that, but he did not have to face down an angry mob, engorged on George Will's Latinate words and driven to frenzy by that pundit''s complex sentence structure. Can anyone here guarantee that the next mad gunman will not be a faithful reader of George Will? It is simply not prudent for a civilized society to take such risks. It follows as the night the day, therefore, that all decent people should insult Sarah Palin.

(The Crypto Jew)Garage:Unfortunately, Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pa., wants to do just that. He’s introducing a bill that would make it a crime “to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress.” That’s an insidious and sinister reaction to a tragedy that by all indications, appears to have been committed by an insane man.

Or

Rep. James Clyburn, the South Carolina lawmaker who is the House’s third highest-ranking Democrat, called for the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, which once regulated TV and radio broadcasters under the oversight of the Federal Communications Commission."Free speech is as free speech does,” Clyburn told the Charleston Post and Courier last week. “You cannot yell 'fire' in a crowded theater and call it free speech. And some of what I hear, and [what] is being called free speech, is worse than that."

Or Al SharptonYou’re going to tell me it’s alright to get up and by any way you want, explicit or implicit, just offend people based on their race or their gender or their sex? I think that we’ve got to have a standard across the board in government how we use these airwaves and I’m determined to make sure we have that standard.

You've are either a complete idiot or a liar. Althouse has been blogging for a week and a half on the Democratic Party's call for censorship of political speech. What do you think this discussion is about?

I'm done, garage. There is no explanation for your behavior other than that you are an idiot or a liar.

The argument we have been considering is that an entire range of words should be censored out of the language, in the name of "civility." (I feel like I'm speaking to an absolute dunce.) This is, garage, what is called "censorship."

Perhaps the problem, garage, is that you are too dumb to understand what is meant by "censorship?"

I prefer this OWH gem: "Lawyers spend their professional careers shoveling smoke", the accuracy of which I believe the Professor proved in her previous post on how to voting for Obama was counter intuitively the best course.

Garage: Here are links to a few instances where liberals have suggested shutting down Fox News and talk radio. There are, of course, thousands of such links available on the search engines Google and Bing.

Not a Democrat, but a nice little synopsis of Progressive thinking, Simon Jenkins:

Today's culprit is freedom of speech, or at least the speech of the American right and its broadcast cheerleaders (Emph. Added). Shock-jock radio presenters feed on biased television news to present a view of the world divided between goodies and baddies. The baddies are always on the brink of victory and must be confronted with virile aggression. Language that might not disturb a balanced mind can clearly stimulate and legitimise an unbalanced one.

Oh here’s one more: I'm tired of the right and the left. There's a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox and to MSNBC, "Out. Off. End. Goodbye." It'd be a big favor to political discourse, our ability to do our work here in Congress, and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and, more importantly, in their future.

Joe(The Crypto Jew)I see you came up with one valid example. bravo. So this is what this Censorship Week has been about? One Dem Congressman that wants to make a crime of symbols and speech threatening members of Congress? Why I would say this is yet another epic Hissy Fit from ther right if I didn't know any better!

And then there’s the back-door suppression, “diversity” and “Local content” Yes, let’s make radio more local, i.e., less Rush Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, and both more local AND diverse…stations need diversity councils. I’ll bet that once every group has a member the council will hardly have time for any national programming, and between the “Mulatto Touch-Typists” and “Chrystal Healing Hour” there won’t be much time for anything pesky like popular radio….

Garage you don’t do reading OR math do you…JAY ROCKEFELLER and Clyburn and Robert Brady are THREE members of Congress, not one…and last time I checked Al Sharpton counted for something too in the D-Party….sorry about your dyslexia, innumeracy, or illiteracy….

See playing like Brady…looking past your opponent, Step up your game…or you’re going to be watching the Big Game at home…like Tom Brady, who does have Gisele Bundchen to watch it with, which may make the pain easier to take…

Uh-Uh…nice try:1) Speech even Alex Jones speech is sacrosanct, so to censor Beck OR Olbermann is wrong;2) Sure “you” give up “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” and 250,000 viewers and “we” give up Beck with 1,000,000 million viewers? Who’s hurt worse, Left or Right…nice try “J”.That’s what Rockefeller was doing, giving up MSNBC, a loss leader, to get Fox…great exchange it gives his side ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN and we get nothing…

It is not a question of censorship but recognizing that words matter and influence, other wise why use them? To quote James W. Clarke, a scholar on American assassins, "It is pure nonsense to suggest, as some have, that the political environment has nothing to do with the actions of very disturbed individuals...." And apparently we have plenty of these individuals-- just yesterday and bomb was planted along the MLK parade route in Spokane, Wash. At the very least we need to open the dialog in programs control by a very narrow group of media owners, and we need to be able to label the rhetoric calling for "shooting people in the head,"(Beck) as irresponsible and dangerous. I think talk radio could take a page from Thom Hartmen who gives credible folks with different views than his a change to disagree in extended dialogs-- something missing of most of the other shows. Call it diversity, or call it being intellectually honest.

One name R-V…Randi Rhodes…get back to me when you trash her and call her “irresponsible and dangerous.” Yeah those few people calling the shots in radio, you mean the SUCCESSFUL ONES? You think Air America and its followers ought to have a seat at the table? Even though it folded? Sure great plan, let the folks who CAN’T do talk radio have a say in what’s aired…it’ll KILL Talk Radio, and leave your side with NPR. Again, great plan…sorry no thanks not buying it.

But thank you for playing…go back to World Class Environmental Engineering and Condescension.

Nice try, but at best speech is protected. Not sacrosanct. And defamation or telling outright falsehoods can be prosecuted--so can blatantly racist or obscene speech. Now, a Fox dolt might get away with it, a local politician, professor, preacher, not likely.

But that wasn't really the issue, which was sort of speculative, Joe. As in should a loudmouth know-nothing (like with 2 years of college, if that) like Glenn Beck have the right to spout off about any and everything, or tell lies, or utter racist/sexist speech? (Hint: nyet) . Were Beck to like get on FoxCo and deny the...Holocaust ever happened, you can bet many would want him censored, ASAP.

But that wasn't really the issue, which was sort of speculative, Joe. As in should a loudmouth know-nothing (like with 2 years of college, if that) like Glenn Beck have the right to spout off about any and everything, or tell lies, or utter racist/sexist speech? (Hint: nyet) . Were Beck to like get on FoxCo and deny the...Holocaust ever happened, you can bet many would want him censored, ASAP.

I don’t know how much college do you have? Is it enough to justify YOU speaking “J?” You seem fairly typical of your ilk, the rules won’t affect YOU, just “them.” So should a former sports reporter and graduate from Cornell’s AGRICULTURE School have a national “news” show and “spout off about any and everything, or tell lies”? Just wondered there “J?” Should you be allowed to ask a Congresswomon to slit her wrists, or slit her own throat? How about THAT, “J?” Funny don’t hear you talking about THAT, “J?” Funny, huh…who has the hate….

Good point, RV: Beck, a private citizen without military influence, should be excoriated for talking about whether an enemy combatant should be killed rather than captured, while the Obama administration gets a pass for a policy of avoiding the unpleasantries of dealing with enemy prisoners by ACTUALLY KILLING over 1,000 Afghans and Pakastanis through drone strikes. But by all means, let's discuss the dangers (!!!) of Beck's speech.

better question: should a moron who strings together endless hypothetical questions be taken seriously ? Answer: NO.

Aufweederzehen CJ.

Glenn Beck's speech should be restricted to verifiable points, only. For that matter, so should all pundits. In effect the Foxbots want the right to incite, to spew vitriol and hype, to utter half-truths. Has nothing to do with Truth, but ....keeping the yokels fired up (and selling ads)

Among people who have learned something from the 18th century (sayVoltaire) it is a truism hardly deserving discussion that the defense of the right of free expression is not restricted to ideas one approves of and that it is precisely in the case of ideas found most offensive that these rights must be most vigorously defended.(Noam Chomsky)

from J's profile. so apparently he likes free speech when he's not calling for restrictions on other people's or calling someone a faggot.

J: Amigo!! Very uncivil retort. Saying something is so is not a link to an instance of Beck or Rush shouting FIRE. Asserting that something is so does not make it so, hipster dude. Provide one, just one, link of either party doing the equivalent of shouting fire.

This is a quote from the Fox News script--after Beck was talking the media and Washington, he said, " You've been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You're going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you." I realize he is not logical, but still this is irresponsible crap.

J: Dude!! You are in the trash business!! And are you like a non-white hipster because you haven't mentioned that you might actually be a bad ass gat carrying mistizo? How come no more white trash? We have plenty of white trash down here in the sweet sunny south. Are you suggesting we eliminate them? Surely not. No more white trash like anywhere? What caliber your gat?

I don't know what the precise legal term for it is - ironic? but apparently the quote from Holmes' Schenck opinion actually upheld the conviction of a draft protester of all things. Holmes, if wikipedia is to be believed, then went on to concur in the Whitney v. California opinion that supplemented the "clear and present danger" formulation with a "bad tendency" test to uphold the conviction of someone involved in starting up a communist party. And since then the Court has adopted an "imminent lawless action" test which overturned the conviction of a KKK leader for advocating violence. I'm glad con law butters Althouse's bread, but all of her tags on this post do seem accurate.

People like you want "responsible" speech, i.e., speech you like or speech from your opponents that is so mild, so convoluted in its complexity, so harmless that it really doesn't impede your intellectual progress. Sorry to say, speech is Rush Limbaugh and Mike Malloy and Randi Rhodes...Speech is Ayn Randf and Herbert Marcuse...we don't sull it on "responsible" or not, but only on wheteher it has a market or not.

In YOUR case, I believe, the problem is not Irresposnible Speech, were it so we'd hear more about Rhodes, Malloy, or Schultz, no instead you complain aobut EFFECTIVE Speech, Speech that IMPEDES your progress, and so you wish to label it "Irresponsible."

GarageMahal: So how many Democrats can you name that are for censoring your speech? You blab here everyday. What Democrats are calling for censoring other people's speech? I'm betting you can't name one.

I'm surprised you don't remember the left's decades-long efforts to suppress free speech at colleges and universities across the country through the use of speech codes.

Sheldon Hackney, when he was president of the University of Pennsylvania, famously tried to expel a student who called a group of black women students "water buffaloes" for laughing and singing under his dorm window during finals week. The campus free speech advisor said the term was racist because water buffalo were black and from Africa (actually usually tan and from Asia).

This was such an absurd case it everyone from John Chancellor to Doonesbury ridiculed the school. A group of heroic professors finally saved the student's much persecuted butt. Naturally Bill Clinton appointed Hackney to be Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Donna Shalala, when she was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin instituted a speech code which a federal judge later found unconstitutional. She also tried to limit what profs could say in their classrooms, but this backfired when too many professors got brought up on charges. For her efforts Bill Clinton made her Secretary of Health and Human Services.

In a 2007 case at Indiana-Purdue university in Indianapolis a student was found guilty of racial harassment for reading (an academic) textbook in public whose cover showed men wearing Klan hoods.

A professor at Brandeis University was prosecuted for racial harassment for using the term wetback in his Latin American politics class.

There are numerous instances where leftist students on college campus have stolen the entire printing of college newspapers for what they considered offensive stories, columns or cartoons. In most cases the college administration merely looked the other way.

I remember once personally asking the head of the Woman's Studies Department at Lon Beach State why she wouldn't allow conservative woman students to post notices on the department's bulletin board. Her unabashed answer: "I'm a communist. I don't believe in free speech."

GarageMahal: So how many Democrats can you name that are for censoring your speech? You blab here everyday. What Democrats are calling for censoring other people's speech? I'm betting you can't name one.

I'm surprised you don't remember the left's decades-long efforts to suppress free speech at colleges and universities across the country through the use of speech codes.

Sheldon Hackney, when he was president of the University of Pennsylvania, famously tried to expel a student who called a group of black women students "water buffaloes" for laughing and singing under his dorm window during finals week. The campus free speech advisor said the term was racist because water buffalo were black and from Africa (actually usually tan and from Asia).

This was such an absurd case it everyone from John Chancellor to Doonesbury ridiculed the school. A group of heroic professors finally saved the student's butt. In return for Hackney's dedication to free speech, Bill Clinton appointed him to be Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Donna Shalala, when she was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin instituted a speech code which a federal judge later found unconstitutional. She also tried to limit what profs could say in their classrooms, but this backfired when too many professors got brought up on charges. For her efforts Bill Clinton made her Secretary of Health and Human Services.

In a 2007 case at Indiana-Purdue university in Indianapolis a student was found guilty of racial harassment for reading (an academic) textbook in public whose cover showed men wearing Klan hoods.

A professor at Brandeis University was prosecuted for racial harassment for using the term wetback in his Latin American politics class.

There are numerous instances where leftist students on college campus have stolen the entire printing of college newspapers for what they considered offensive stories, columns or cartoons. In most cases the college administration merely looked the other way.

I remember once personally asking the head of the Woman's Studies Department at Lon Beach State why she wouldn't allow conservative woman students to post notices on the department's bulletin board. Her unabashed answer: "I'm a communist. I don't believe in free speech."

GarageMahal: So how many Democrats can you name that are for censoring your speech? You blab here everyday. What Democrats are calling for censoring other people's speech? I'm betting you can't name one.

I'm surprised you don't remember the left's decades-long efforts to suppress free speech at colleges and universities across the country through the use of speech codes.

Sheldon Hackney, when he was president of the University of Pennsylvania, famously tried to expel a student who called a group of black women students "water buffaloes" for laughing and singing under his dorm window during finals week. The campus free speech advisor said the term was racist because water buffalo were black and from Africa (actually usually tan and from Asia).

This was such an absurd case it everyone from John Chancellor to Doonesbury ridiculed the school. A group of heroic professors finally saved the student's butt. Naturally Bill Clinton appointed Hackney to be Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Donna Shalala, when she was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin instituted a speech code which a federal judge later found unconstitutional. She also tried to limit what profs could say in their classrooms, but this backfired when too many professors got brought up on charges. For her efforts Bill Clinton made her Secretary of Health and Human Services.

In a 2007 case at Indiana-Purdue university in Indianapolis a student was found guilty of racial harassment for reading (an academic) textbook in public whose cover showed men wearing Klan hoods.

A professor at Brandeis University was prosecuted for racial harassment for using the term wetback in his Latin American politics class.

There are numerous instances where leftist students on college campus have stolen the entire printing of college newspapers for what they considered offensive stories, columns or cartoons. In most cases the college administration merely looked the other way.

I remember once personally asking the head of the Woman's Studies Department at Lon Beach State why she wouldn't allow conservative woman students to post notices on the department's bulletin board. Her unabashed answer: "I'm a communist. I don't believe in free speech."

GarageMahal: So how many Democrats can you name that are for censoring your speech? You blab here everyday. What Democrats are calling for censoring other people's speech? I'm betting you can't name one.

I'm surprised you don't remember the left's decades-long efforts to suppress free speech at colleges and universities across the country through the use of speech codes.

Sheldon Hackney, when he was president of the University of Pennsylvania, famously tried to expel a student who called a group of black women students "water buffaloes" for laughing and singing under his dorm window during finals week. The campus free speech advisor said the term was racist because water buffalo were black and from Africa (actually usually tan and from Asia).

This was such an absurd case it everyone from John Chancellor to Doonesbury ridiculed the school. A group of heroic professors finally saved the student's butt. Naturally Bill Clinton appointed Hackney to be Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Donna Shalala, when she was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin instituted a speech code which a federal judge later found unconstitutional. For her efforts Bill Clinton made her Secretary of Health and Human Services.

In a 2007 case at Indiana-Purdue university in Indianapolis a student was found guilty of racial harassment for reading (an academic) textbook in public whose cover showed men wearing Klan hoods.

A professor at Brandeis University was prosecuted for racial harassment for using the term wetback in his Latin American politics class.

There are numerous instances where leftist students on college campus have stolen the entire printing of college newspapers for what they considered offensive stories, columns or cartoons.

I remember once personally asking the head of the Woman's Studies Department at Lon Beach State why she wouldn't allow conservative woman students to post notices on the department's bulletin board. Her unabashed answer: "I'm a communist. I don't believe in free speech."